


You have lost me, I won't know

by A_Hippo_Named_Saelym (Kairacahra1869)



Series: Fool Series (Reverse Tin Soldier AU) [1]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: AU, But also, Character "death", Character Death, Fool Series, Gen, I do what i do best and write rambly stuff, Marionette!Connor, Reverse Tin Soldier AU, Woodmaker!Amanda, dunno, new au woot woot, what time period is this?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-25
Updated: 2019-05-25
Packaged: 2020-03-17 10:10:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18963133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kairacahra1869/pseuds/A_Hippo_Named_Saelym
Summary: A marionette goes through companionship, pride, and pain, through no volition of its own.





	You have lost me, I won't know

It used to be lonely on the stage. Back when puppeteering was at its height, Connor would be pulled and manipulated, his puppeteer crudely, but sufficiently drawing him along to the music and she weaved a story. Connor could never tell if she was retelling the story or creating it on her own, could tell even less if the music was made for them or them for it. Then again, back then, besides the sense of loneliness, Connor wasn’t as  _ aware _ of himself. He doesn’t quite remember precisely when he became aware, but he knows he’s been with his creator since his formation. Her calloused hands sometimes spark distant memories as she would replace a limb or sharpen the details of his face.

Eventually, his creator was able to procure more marionettes, though none were carved by her hands. Still, she seemed pleased with their increased numbers and spent years concocting a method to have them able to dance simultaneously along the stage, without humans to control them. Sometimes he worried that one of these new marionettes would replace him. She would sometimes spend days cooing over them and their craftsmanship. Rather quickly, Connor realised he had nothing to worry about. Every new upgrade or method she would come across in these new marionettes, she would eagerly pick apart and then incorporate it into his original design. It was when he was given meticulously fashioned marble eyes that he was able to see. And with his sight, he gained an abundance of love for the woman who breathed life into him. He doesn’t know if she knew he was aware. He didn’t think it mattered, in hindsight, as she never lost interest in him and always used him as her standard.

With all the new marionettes that arrived, he grew less and less jealous. With his sight, he could put faces to names that she gave them and, eventually, considered them his brothers and sisters. Back then, he was marvelled at, for his pristine condition, his smooth joints, his artfully crafted facial features. His creator, who not only spent countless months carving and perfecting each minuscule detail of him and his siblings, showered him with so much love and pride that more and more he found himself becoming more and more aware. She gave him ears, and with it could finally hear her soft but strong voice. She carefully crafted a mouth, one that would move, and Connor thought he would finally be able to converse with her. Yet, when he tried to speak, he found he could not control it as she easily could with a simple lever at the nape of his neck. He wished his mouth could move on its own, so he would have conversed with her as opposed to the one-sided conversations as she would rattle on about his purpose and her craftsmanship. Instead, he learned to be content with his silence, invest in whatever she had to say.

Turns out, his creator had a name: Amanda. She was well into her 40s, which meant they had spent close to 25 years with each other. She had to leave her family when they discovered she was to have a bastard child. And then she had to leave her child because his lungs weren’t strong enough. Connor grew more and more fascinated with her as he uncovered more and more of her story. He was the sole reason she was able to last this long, being her main source of income, and Connor felt a new feeling, one that he never thought he could have himself. That feeling was pride. Pride in himself, for being so helpful to his creator, Amanda, despite his inability to do things on his own.

It was a rather dreary week when Amanda had left. Why she left, Connor didn’t know, but when she returned, it could only be the world aligning itself for her as that dreary week burst with colour as the sun broke through the clouds and the cold and bitter rain ceased. The smile on her face was genuine and the glint in her eye made her look several years younger, not that Connor thought her old to begin with. She had come back with a strange sort of contraption, and even stranger ramblings on what it was for. Connor didn’t pretend to understand what it was for, but the effects of it were immediate as, for the first time, Connor found himself moving across the workshop without her aide. His strings were attached to something in the ceiling, and whatever it was only allowed for basic forward motions and rudimentary arm waving, but he could  _ see _ her once instead of sensing her. Within months, she had every one of them outfitted with this strange device and, with nary a week of practice, they were performing again.

For months after, Connor felt loved and precious. No longer was he lonely on stage. No longer was he stuck in his own head. As he was moved across the stage, his siblings moving either in tandem or juxtaposed depending on their mechanics, he grew to love the adoring faces of other humans on him. And if he imagined hard enough, he could almost pretend he was in control of his movements, and that it was him, himself, dancing across the stage.

Then word got around that Amanda was a witch. Connor had heard the angry whispers and fearful murmurs in the thinning crowds where she would gather them. The town’s people might have been illiterate, but they were no fools and it only took one of them noticing that there was no one on the end of those strings that pulled the marionettes across the stage to incite fear in the rest. It could’ve been avoided, perhaps, if she had integrated herself with the people more, and spent less time on her own carving away at his limbs, always striving for  _ better, _ never satisfied that her products were at their best. Perhaps the device itself was magic, but even so, it wasn’t she that created it, just her brilliance that allowed her to use it and replicate it. Connor believed that a simple conversation would’ve cleared up everything, but without a voice, and without any agency, he instead had to sit in his spot behind a glass case as those villagers dragged her out of her workshop one night. They dragged her outside, and Connor could hear the heavy thuds and words as they beat her. He couldn’t get out and help her as she struggled to keep her pained gasps and whimpers to herself. He couldn’t scream as his wooden siblings were dismantled and splintered by the blunt woodworkers’ tools. He couldn’t even gather moisture around his eyes, to cry for himself as, unable to break into his case, the villagers ignited her workshop, his home, into flames.

Connor could think and because he could think, he could tell when things were going right and when they were going wrong. As the glass heats up, it warps, and Connor watches it implode onto him. Hot glass cutting through his wooden limbs like a particularly hefty chop from an axe. Some embedded itself into him, sinking deep within. Without the barrier, the fire made quick work of his limbs, starting with his multi-jointed hands and feet, the heat so hot it warped the metal giving his hands and feet shape as it ate away at the wood. One of the support beams of the glass fell into his torso, the metal red hot. It burned through his torso.

As the room filled with more and more smoke, wooden beams crackling and becoming brittle under the pressure of the roof, Connor knew that everything was wrong. He couldn’t scream, couldn’t cry, couldn’t even twitch, but the feeling of wrongness was so potent that he felt despair and pain. He felt his left leg fall off of him, felt his left arm follow suit, and just as he felt his head bending, the weight of his head too much for his neck joints, he heard a crash and then his entire body was falling and being crushed.

The crash snuffed out the flames, but he remained trapped. Eventually, the area around him rapidly cooled. If he concentrated, he could feel the vibrations of something pelting the destroyed roofing above him. After a while, he felt moisture soak into his limbs and came to the realization that it was raining. Connor felt thankful to no longer be stuck in that inferno, but now he worried how his body would react with the water. He didn’t enjoy the idea of being submerged for too long. Most importantly though, he found himself tired.

He couldn’t close his eyes, but he felt himself slipping unaware again, much like he was at the beginning of his life. He hoped Amanda got free of their attackers and would find him soon.


End file.
